1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to telecommunications systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to an advanced intelligent network system for Internet service provision on a per-use basis. The present invention also provides pre-paid Internet service connections.
2. Background of the Invention
Over the last ten years, use of the Internet has grown rapidly. A large segment of this growth stems from an increase in individual dial-up subscribers. These dial-up subscribers use the public switched telephone network (“PSTN”) to establish connections to their Internet Service providers (“ISPs”). In many cases, individual subscribers are required to enter into long-term contractual agreements when they sign up for Internet service. Such long-term agreements are generally required to reduce the ISP's overhead in creating accounts and billing subscribers. However, many subscribers find such long term agreements undesirable.
Strong competition exists among the many ISPs in the marketplace for acquiring new customers and for retaining existing customers. Subscribers entering the market for ISP services may prefer trying out different ISPs before making a long term commitment to the service. Thus, rather than entering into a long-term agreement with a single ISP, such new customers may desire a system providing access to multiple ISPs on a pre-paid or pay-per-use basis. Similarly, for privacy or security reasons, subscribers may prefer the option of using several different ISPs on a recurring basis. Under the conventional systems and methods for accessing an ISP, a user would have to subscribe to many services, thereby incurring multiple monthly fees to achieve this result. Again, these subscribers may prefer a system providing access to multiple ISPs on a pre-paid or pay-per-use basis.
One reason such pre-paid or pay-per-use services are not readily available in conventional ISP systems and methods is that the overhead for tracking and billing customers outweighs the benefits of catering to the needs of these customers. Additionally, some ISPs may view such short term arrangements as cutting into their customer base without providing the financial returns to justify the cost. It is commonly known in the art that tracking and billing systems are complex and expensive to operate. To accurately bill customers for units used requires a complex infrastructure of hardware, software and personnel resources. If the monthly bill per subscriber is a low dollar amount, then bill collection procedures may not be cost-effective without additional leverage to encourage payment. For these and similar reasons, ISPs have been reluctant to provide pre-paid or pay-per-use Internet access services. Thus, there remains a need for a system that provides access to multiple ISPs on a pre-paid or pay-per-use basis and does not increase the ISP's overhead.
In conventional ISP systems, the PSTN is used merely to connect the caller to the ISP. The PSTN does not verify the caller and does not track the caller's usage of the ISP's resources. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating how dial-up subscriber 30 connects to ISP 20 using PSTN 10. Dial-up subscriber (also referred to as “caller” herein) 30, places a call over PSTN 10 using computer 31, modem 32 and subscriber line 33. Within PSTN 10, the call is processed by the caller's Service Switching point (“SSP” or “switch,” herein) 11 and the ISP's SSP 12. To support multiple connections, ISPs must maintain numerous telephone lines connected to modems. Rather than advertising a different telephone number for each telephone line, ISPs generally advertise a limited number of telephone access numbers. Each telephone access number corresponds to one or more telephone lines. These telephone lines may be made up of, e.g., individual POTS lines, one or more T1 lines, or primary rate ISDN (“PRI”) lines. For simplicity, the figures and discussion herein show the connection to be made up of PRI lines 21, as shown in FIG. 1.
PRI lines 21 lead to ISP 20 where they are connected to multi-line hunt group (“MLHG”) 22 as shown in FIG. 1. MLHG 22 is modem pool allowing multiple simultaneous connections and is controlled by access server 23. MLHG 22 takes incoming subscriber calls and routes them to the first open modem in the modem pool. When a caller dials the telephone access number for ISP 20, from the PSTN's point of view, the call is processed like any other call in PSTN 10. That is, the call is routed between the caller and called party (in this case, ISP 20) through one or more switches. If ISP 20's lines are all busy, or “off-hook”, i.e., there are no voice communications paths available, the caller gets a busy-signal, which is provided by the PSTN. On the other hand, if lines are available, switch 12 will terminate the call to ISP 20 and it is ISP 20's responsibility to answer the call, verify the caller's authorization for access to ISP 20, and setup the caller's connection to the Internet.
From ISP 20's point of view, several intervening steps must be accomplished before granting the caller access to the Internet. When a call reaches ISP 20 via PRI lines 21 and MLHG 22, access server 23 answers the call. After answering the call, access server 23 must determine whether or not the caller should be granted access and if so, to which services. Access server 23 queries the caller for information such as a username and password for use in identifying the caller and the caller's authorized services. The dialog between the caller and access server 23 is usually performed automatically between access server 23 and communications software operating on the caller's computer 31.
Generally, ISPs use centralized servers to store and manage its subscriber databases. Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (“RADIUS”) server 24, having database 24a, shown in FIG. 1, is functionally connected to access server 23 and provides this centralized management. Thus, access server 23 collects username and password information from the subscriber and passes it on to RADIUS server 24. After RADIUS server 24 verifies a subscriber's username and password, it provides access server 23 with configuration information specific to the caller. Access server 23 uses the configuration information to provide the authorized services to the caller. Access servers and RADIUS servers are described in more detail in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/133,299, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Additional information on access servers and RADIUS servers may be found in Rigney et al., Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS), Network Working Group, January, 1997, or in Rigney et al., RADIUS Accounting, Network Working Group, April, 1997.
The conventional system and methods described above pose a further obstacle to providing pre-paid Internet services. As noted above, typically every ISP subscriber is assigned a unique username and password. Typically, the subscriber may change the password, but the username remains fixed to ensure it is unique. The combination of username and password allows for verification to ensure the user has permission (i.e., is an authorized customer) to use ISP 20's services. Pre-paid telecommunications services are desirable in one respect because of the inherent anonymity that may be gained. However, under the current systems and methods, ISPs generally demand some means to track the usage of their resources to a specific account for billing purposes.